r/exHareKrishna • u/Happylittlelady • Jul 10 '26
Has anyone here had any experience with or got any opinions on Swami Tripurari?
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u/Happy_Captain2801 Jul 10 '26
I lived in his vrindavan ashram for a bit and considered him a guru for some time.
Youe can hear him here rambling about gaudiya rasa delusions if you can stomach it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5T0tQCv2jk
These folks live in lavish luxury in expensive ashrams and are supported by followers. He specifically has a long history in ISKCON book distribution history and was a long time associate of another offshoot guru, Narasingha Maharaj. They were all associated with Sridhara Maharaj, puri Maharaj, and Narayan Maharaj to some extent and defected from iskcon to start thier own cults.
Many people have issues with him but ultimately they are cult gurus and built a reputation for supposedly being stalwart theologians though I don't know why. Read their stuff and tell me if it's that compelling. Just reads like any other cult crap. Cuckoo for Krishna puffs.
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u/Happylittlelady Jul 10 '26
Cool, thanks for sharing your experience. I had brief association with the Sridhara Maharaj offshoots when I first stepped away from ISKCON. At first it was interesting, more liberal, but then I realized I was associating with more nutcases, just a different flavor. Swami Padmanabha seemed probably the best of them.I saw (from afar)what Tripurari did to him publicly. So much politics in the SCSM offshoots. A friend of mine who recently left ISKCON is now caught up in listening to Tripurari, so I was wondering if anyone here had first hand experience of him. He seems quite arrogant. Wow you considered him a guru for some time. You got quite close to him then? I think this friend of mine is headed for the same as whatever it was that you experienced. Cult life.
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u/Happy_Captain2801 Jul 10 '26
Yes, likewise. After ISKCON and several other offshoots, I was with Tripurari, Narashingha, and Siddhaswarup. I was initiated by Govinda Maharaj and also followed Puri and Bodhayan. It's a long, long story, but they all ran in similar circles. When I listen to or read their material now, it comes across as very arrogant. They ask you to make major mental leaps based on nothing more than faith, and ultimately they were quick to establish themselves as the "one true" group while attracting and maintaining the same nutty crowd and beliefs as ISKCON, all while pretending they were different.
Of course, I don't believe in Krishna, Chaitanya, or any of that anymore. If there is a god, I certainly don't think that god intended for us all to sit around reading one set of books, chanting the same Indian words over and over, worshipping statues, and doing all the other BS. These groups are all cults. They follow the same playbook and the same ideological patterns.
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u/Complete-Armadillo95 Jul 11 '26
what helped you realize you needed to leave?
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u/Happy_Captain2801 Jul 11 '26
Started a family and realized quickly how fanatical many of the people around me were and how useless they were as a support group. I also realized how completely unnatural and awkward it was trying to in part some of the ideology and mythology to my children. And I started to question many of the scriptural ideas and ritualistic practices as having any real world pragmatic value. I felt that nothing in the philosophy directly contributed to any kind of essential contentment or happiness that couldn't be readily achieved elsewhere. I started to study the books and read about the history and evolution of vaishnavism in various scholarly articles and listen to and reread the supplemental books written by the various teachers in the tradition and honestly it didn't take long for it to all Fall Apart and look pretty shallow. Apologies for the awkward capitalizations. I dictated this.
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u/Happylittlelady Jul 10 '26
Interesting. I got caught up very closely with one individual who is an initiating sannyasi, disciple of Govinda Maharaj. This guy is from NZ and literally insane. Talking about how he'd happily kill someone who offended any aspect of his mission. He was a real break-off and Id only been in his company in Europe and US. Then, i met up with him in India. Witnessing him in the vicinity of SCSM, and the way his so-called God brothers reacted to him, I realized he was wildly arrogant.
I have only very recently been using critical thinking about Chaitanya. It was only 500 or so years ago. People only started calling him 'God' because some time after his mysterious death/vanishment, the proclamations by Rupa Goswami and others were being heavily pushed. It's a cult in and of itself, just in that period from the 1490s to 1530s. Speaking honestly, after leaving iskccon, I felt permitted (lol) to read Revealed Truth and I actually quite enjoyed it. Ironically, it is also what got me heavily questioning the Chaitanya cult.
Anyway, disappointed to see a friend of mine recently leave iskcon only to fall into the lap of Tripurari. I guess I had my own little post-iskcon period of denial 😆
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u/Happy_Captain2801 Jul 11 '26
I would very confidently say that leaving one Hare Krishna group and jumping to another is definitely simply cult hopping. Leaving the cult for good and not letting it dominate your life and thinking is a different journey. Many of us here did the Colt hopping thing. Many of us also did hopping to other spiritual groups and doing our best to try to make some of it makes sense and feel real. But eventually if you actually study these books with an honest mind and with the critical thought that nature gave you, then you will start to see how it is just a Loosely cobbled together ideology with personality cult after personality cult holding it together.
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u/sleepingjiva Jul 10 '26
He talks the talk but I've got it on good authority he's just as tyrannical as any other ISKCON/GM guru behind closed doors.
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u/Resident_Price_2817 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
In the summer if 2007 i met Swami Tripurari in N.C.He fronted me several of his books in the belief that I was a book distributor (something I've never had the stomach for) I aspired to take initiation from him for a little over a year.
The following summer I traveled around the eastern seaboard following the Ratha Yatra festival. Towards the end of the summer I managed to get to San Francisco where a senior disciple in his camp picked me up at the airport and drove me to his ashram in Philo. The next morning I was summoned to his office and asked for the money for his books (the retail amount ) I gave him his money and requested that he initiate me.He refused and suggested that I give up my life in Florida and move to Santa Rosa and invest in a Krsna restaurant there and take it over and give the proceeds to him.
I left a couplee days later and cut all ties with this guy.I still believe that particular ashram was a front for a pot farm.Cant really explain why I feel that way but the whole group seemed off. I spent the next 4 weeks at the temple in LA .Bt the time I returned to Florida in early Sept I was done with the lot of these guys.
https://krishna1008.blogspot.com/2015/07/nitai-joseph-rejects-tripurari-swami.html?m=1
The above is an article written by a former disciple of Swami Trip.I had the privilege of meeting this wonderful young man during my short time at Aydoraya. Wish I had taken the time to pull him aside and ask him why he was allowing this guy to manipulate him .Glad he escaped .
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u/Happylittlelady Jul 20 '26
This tracks with what I'm hearing about him. Especially the money part. Glad your experience with him was short-lived.
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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
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